Busy Bee

Lack of blogging can only mean one thing - I've been a busy bee!

I can't quite believe a whole month has passed without me writing anything, I have been trying to read most of your posts so I haven't been out of the loop completely.

So what have I been up to..... Well on the crafting front I have made two HUGE beach bags and two matching drawstring wet bags.

A lovely bright summery paisley fabric.   

the inside with lots of pockets.

Beach huts fabric 

with a lovely co-ordinating stripe fabric for the lining.

These bags have waterproofed lined pockets on the sides for drinks bottles and the drawstring bags are lined with waterproof ripstop fabric too for wet swimwear.

Two personalised swim bags

and a cute messenger bag from fairy fabric

And over the past few days I have been making pirate outfits for Tomas and some of his friends for Treasure Island/Pirate day on Friday.

a green swashbuckling pirate

a pink girl pirate, the skirt is based on handkerchief/bandana style skirt that I found on Pinterest but adapted slightly, changing the wide elasticated waist band to a narrow covered waistband.

a black and red shiver me timbers pirate

and finally my very own Tongueless Tomas pirate.

There was lots of very excited pirates in school this morning and I picked up a very exhausted pirate this afternoon.

I also finished off a secret present today which I can't show you until next week when it has been received but I am rather pleased how it turned out!

We have also started working through our home decorating list starting with Tomas' room which hasn't been changed since he was a baby and really needed doing. So we emptied the room, selling any unwanted furniture on ebay to help pay for the new furniture which i had ordered to make the most of the special offer and had stacked in the garage waiting for me to put together. We then removed the old border, filled holes and rubbed down woodwork before going out to choose some paint. It seems that it has been some time since I bought any paint because I nearly fell over when having had my chosen paint made up I got to the check out and it was £40 odd for the emulsion and £20 odd pound for the gloss!!! I must be getting old! We also bought a huge tub of magnolia for the ceilings which was cheap in comparison. We live in an old Victorian house which is beautiful but has the drawback of single skinned wall (no insulation) and as Tomas has one of the only north facing external walls I lined it with polystyrene to add a little warmth. We also found some textured star paintable wallpaper which I used over the polystyrene. I'm just hoping that Tomas doesn't do what his older brother did and make lots of little marks in the wall with a tiger!! With all the prep work done, Paul painted the ceiling and I painted the walls and glossed the woodwork and the radiator. The next job was to order the carpet, just as we are leaving the house I realised I didn't have the room measurements so popped back in doors to get them. When I got back in the car I said to Paul "oh by the way I measured the hall stairs and landing carpet too." He just nodded and knew what was coming next, my logic was if the carpet fitter is here fitting one carpet then he might as well fit two!!! This did mean that I had to get two rooms finished before the carpet arrived and although it was tiring it was worth as the hall, stairs and landing definitely needed a freshen up and I needed a kick up the bum to do it!!

I haven't got any pictures to show you yet but I will take some as soon as the finishing touches are in place.

There is so much more to tell you but it seems I have rambled on long enough and It doesn't help that I have been writing this post over several days TTFN.

Our new Porch

January seems to have passed in a haze of builders, tea, and lack of sleep!!!! Also my 9.30pm computer curfew is still in force (the computer is in Rachel's room temporarily)which means my blogging time has been drastically reduced. I still have some much to show you all with regards to the kitchen but first things first, I promised to show the pictures of the new oak porch we had fitted on the side door. Unfortunately the porch didn't get the recognition it deserved as work started on the kitchen the day after it was fitted and then it was non stop!!!!

So here are the before photos

we inherited a flat roof extension from the previous previous owners, which originally only had one window and the door, and as I like to keep things symmetrical we added another window on the other side to even things out. We then also added the orangery and although the walls are staggered this side of the house is now quite long and we felt that the side door needed and bit more umph!!! Initially I considered a white painted wooden porch because the house is Victorian, but couldn't find what I was looking for. Then Paul suggested an oak porch and we spent several months looking at other peoples porches whenever we were out and about (sad I know). We finally decided that an oak porch was what we wanted and found a fantastic company via ebay!!!!

http://www.richwoodoak.co.uk/

Measurements and design were all confirmed via email (which I have to say was a little scary and I checked the measurements lots of times before finally sending them off) and then Richard and his father in law arrived early on the Friday morning to erect the porch, the quality and the craftsmanship is second to non and I would totally recommend them, we have future plans to knock down the garage and replace it with an oak cart lodge so I've no doubt that RichWood will be visiting us again. Hopefully the weather will be better next time as I did feel sorry for them watching out the window as they erected the porch in the pouring rain....

The pictures below were taken during all the kitchen work as our builder Ben was also tiling the porch roof for us with some clay tiles that we had bought, again from ebay!!!!

And finally here is the porch fully tiled, leaded and ridged!!! (the ridge tiles weren't from ebay but from a local reclamation yard!!)

We're really pleased with the outcome and now my only job (she's says adding it to the long list of other jobs!!!) is to repaint the door, frame and step......

The windows are in!

Last Thursday the guys came to fit the new windows, I had hoped to blog over the weekend to keep you all up to date as to how the work was going but there was a slight change of plan and instead of having the weekend to clear the kitchen before work started on Monday the builders were coming to start on Saturday!!! Needless to say I was still clearing out STUFF whilst they were here. Luckily we have known our builders for some time and can work around each other, and as long as I keep them plied with tea and bacon sandwiches everything works fine..
Right back to Thursday and the windows, luckily the weather was fine on Thursday and in no time at all the old bedroom window was out and the new frame in.

Sorry the photo aren't great but it was a case of a quick snap as I had to keep Tompom out of the way as I had visions of him getting a little too close to the gaping holes we now had in the rooms. We were really surprised the difference from the stripped wood of the old windows to the lovely white of the new ones how much brighter the room feels and I am very tempted to paint the hall door frames and the staircase white now...

I know many people don't like UPVC windows but what we liked is the fact that you can't really tell from the back of the house that we have UPVC and next door have wooden windows. And the lovely thing is that we no longer have cold rooms and definitely no more major maintenace to do!!!

So that's one job finished I shall try and post later about the porch!!! you can just see it in the last picture...

And so it begins......

The work on the house that is
today we finally replaced the last two wooden windows in our house, with some lovely double glazed ones!!! oh the warmth.....no more morning condensation, and no more draughts!!!
It was too late tonight when they finished to take any photos so i shall take some tomorrow to show you them all lovely and new because I've no doubt once the novelty of shiny new windows has worn off I shall turn a blind eye to the sticky fingers, nose marks  and the odd lick!!!!

And we're not stopping there....

on Friday we're having an oak porch fitted to the back door (it's really a side door but its our back door if you know what i mean)this was supposed to have been fitted before Christmas and I was going to buy lots of pretty lights and pots to decorate it but unfortunately the chappie who is making it chopped off the top of one of his fingers (hope he didn't get any blood on my new porch!)and so it was delayed. I shall keep all my sparkly Christmas ideas for next year!!!because the novelty of the new porch would have worn off and I won't mind sticking pins/nails in it to hold up all the lovely sparkly lights!!!

We've then got the weekend to empty the kitchen (you remember last year we built an orangery and knocked down two walls in the kitchen)of all it's clutter before Ben the Builder is back to work some magic, plastering walls and ceilings, laying floors, fitting kitchens so that we can really use all the lovely new space that we created last year! The orangery will be painted and is getting new flooring too
I have no idea how we are going to eat, drink, wash dishes, wash clothes etc but it will be worth it when it's all finished.

I think Tompom and I will be popping out a lot!!!leaving Paul to project manage - which he does so brilliantly!!!

I'm hoping to set the computer up in Rachel's room for the next couple of weeks so will try and pop in when i can but i think she might object to me tapping away at the keyboard whilst she's trying to sleep!!